Weekly

The weather this week has been unbelievable! I mean it’s only May and there almost wasn’t a day that it would have stayed under 20 degrees?? I’m loving it.

Of course, as warm weather is not the norm for a Finn, I’ve been going a bit crazy with how I spend my time. I biked to the beach 3 times this week, when I maybe should have been putting a bit more effort to my last presentation/exam… But I mean I passed so it’s all good.

I also made the decision not to attend the exam for Project Management. The Norway trip really screwed my studying schedule, and I would have only had basically 2 days to study the material which was a lot… Aaand because it was an oral exam, I didn’t want to go there and waste the professor’s time being poorly prepared. My other courses fill the 20 ECTS that I’m required to get from DTU, so not completing that course was just easier. (And this way I got to enjoy the sun. 😀 Priorities…)

On Tuesday I decided to visit the Frederiksborg Castle, which had been on my to-do list since February. It was really cool! I think that it was better to visit it now, because the castle garden was soo beautiful now.

I also briefly walked through the Hillerød city center, and I’ve said it before, but the Danish towns are just so damn cute! Why can’t Finland be like this? Can we start building these cute streets in Espoo please?

On Wednesday we celebrated Sotiria’s birthday by going to the park in Frederiksberg with some beers and ciders. It was lovely, although the night ended a bit weirdly in Christiania. 😀 Experiences! On Thursday I had the project presentation for Mobile Application Development with Swift, and I got a 7! First I thought that it was really bad – I mean 7 out of 12 isn’t much – but then I looked at the grading system (which is totally weird btw), and I guess it’s like a Finnish 3? Both translate to good according to Wikipedia.

Thanks Wikipedia. That -3 makes me laugh for some reason – like it’s not bad enough to fail with 0, you have to be given minus points??

And now all my DTU stuff is done! I am now enjoying a nice 3 week summer holiday before leaving Denmark. I also booked my ticket back home this week… So weird that it’s ending already.

On Friday I jumped into my car, picked Minna up, and headed to Bornholm. We drove first from Copenhagen to Ystad, Sweden, and then boarded the ferry to Rønne. Minna had booked us a little cottage from a camping area, and it was so nice! When we arrived, we quickly dropped our stuff there and then set out to explore the island.

We had spent the journey there looking up places in Bornholm that we definitely wanted to visit, and decided to start going through them first on the northern side of the island. The first place we drove to was Jon’s Chapel, a cliff near our camp.

Immediately we were impressed by the nature, and after the weekend I have to say that Bornholm is soo worth the visit for anyone. There is so much to see! It was good to have a car there though, at least now that we were visiting for the first time. There are really good bike roads as well, but as we did some back and forth driving (mostly when searching for food…) it was maybe better that we had the car.

On the first day we also drove through the little towns in the north coast, of which my favourite was definitely a town called Gudhjem.

We had some trouble finding a restaurant that was open, but found one in Svaneke. We both ordered plankabøf, which was a steak inside a mashed potato thing. It’s apparently a dish from Bornholm. Was good!

After the dinner we went a bit crazy for the beautiful sunset.

On Saturday we started the morning by walking to the beach.

Then we spent some time searching for breakfast (which we found in Rønne, at a really hygge cafe), and then headed to see a waterfall called Pissebækken. It was not as grand as the ones in Norway, but still nice! The trail that led to the waterfall was really beautiful as well – there were wild flowers everywhere!

After that it was time for the “main attraction” – Hammerhus! (It was hammertime? Ok sorry) It was a castle ruin from the Middle Ages, and it totally blew me away! The location of the castle was sooo beautiful! Just look:

After Hammerhus we drove to see Hammerodde Fyr,Salomons Kapel and Opalsøen. The first two required us to hike a little bit, which was fun! The nature in the island is so different in different parts, so it was nice to go by foot and really see it properly.

At this point we were getting tired and hungry, and drove to Nexø in search for food. We found pizza.

This time we were prepared for the beautiful sunset, and so when it started approaching we drove back to Hammerhus to watch it. It was the best thing.

Then it was wine & talk time.

Sunday was the beach day, as we had decided already on Friday. We left our lovely little cabin in the morning, and went looking for breakfast. It was again sooo difficult! A tip for anyone going to Bornholm – buy breakfast stuff from Netto and save yourself the trouble of trying to find anywhere to eat. 😀 Every cafe seemed to open at 12??

Eventually we found food though, and after eating we finally headed to Dueodde Beach. It did not disappoint! It was only around +15 degrees outside, so we had the beach pretty much to ourselves as well. 🙂

In the evening it was time to leave. We grabbed dinner at Rønne before driving to the harbour.

The Bornholm trip was really the best way to start the summer holiday that I’ll be enjoying for the next few weeks. 😀 Hard to top though! We’ll see what I come up with next week.

So, this week I attended an ESN trip to Norway. And the trip was amazing! Would it be possible to transfer few of the fjords of Norway to Finland? They are sooooo breathtakingly beautiful!

I took a lot of pictures during the week (736 to be exact), so this post will be quite photo-heavy…

The journey began on Monday evening at 22:00 from Copenhagen Central Station. Sleeping in the bus was not the best, but with a sleep mask and earplugs I managed.

We arrived in Oslo around 8:00, and after breakfast had a guided tour through the city.

After the tour we continued our journey towards Lærdal. Along the way we stopped to visit Borgund Stave Church, and old wooden church built sometime between 1180 and 1250 AD.

When we got to Læerdal, some people went for a swim in the fjord. I didn’t, as I was still feeling a bit flu-ish from last week. I don’t think anyone actually swam that much, the water was far too cold. 😀

In the evening we had a nice barbeque, and got to witness a truly beautiful sunset behind the fjord.

On Wednesday we woke up around 10, and most of the group departed for a glacier hike. I hadn’t booked it, and joined another group for a regular hike in the area. Hiking was fun! I’m still a bit unsure what counts as hiking, but our walk in the woods along the mountain side definitely did. 😀 We hiked to a waterfall, and then returned to the motel.

On the next morning we continued towards Bergen. The departure time was 5:00, because we had to catch a ferry across the fjord. It went surprisingly smoothly – we just gathered our things and continued sleeping in the bus. I was definitely happy that I had brought my sleep mask with me…

Around 7:30 we hopped onboard a fjord cruise which took us the rest of the way to Bergen. It was definitely worth the early wakeup time – the fjord seen from the boat was an unforgettable experience.

As we were approaching Bergen, the weather changed and we hit a wall of rain.

The evening in Bergen was a bit clouded (heh) by the weather – it rained the whole night. The original plan was to hike on top of the mountain Ulrikken, but because of the rain we couldn’t do that. Instead we rested a bit, and then headed to the city.

The next morning we walked from our hostel to the city center, and had a guided tour of Bergen.

After the tour we grabbed lunch at the fish market, and then took the cable car up to Fløyen. The view was absolutely amazing.

After hurrying down the mountain, it was time to leave Bergen and head back to Oslo. Our driver and tour guide took us to see some sights along the way – first of which was a really beautiful waterfall:

The views along the way weren’t bad either… Because of the warm weather, the rivers were flooding as the snow from the mountains was melting so quickly.

Saturday was a free day in Oslo. We started our day by heading to Grünerløkka, a cool neighbourhood near our hostel.

After wandering around a bit, we headed to what we thought was an old town. Some of the group had headed to a hike again, which we had decided against, but somehow our day turned into a day of urban hiking anyway.

After walking around in the city we headed to the islands of Oslo. Or that was the plan – because of the schedules we ended up only visiting one island, Hovedøya.

The greek in her element.

After the island visit we headed to the royal palace, and behind it. Our mission was to find the school from Skam.

We found it!

After that fangirl moment we rejoined with the hikers.

At 21:00 we left Oslo, and the journey back began. At 21 began also Eurovision, which we watched from my iPad. 😀 It was quite funny watching it with people from other countries than Finland.

Our bus was back in Copenhagen at 4:00 today, so after getting home I headed straight back to sleep. When I woke up, I spent rest of the day recovering. I did manage to get out of the house though, as the weather was so nice – I biked to Klampenborg to chill at the beach. The tan is coming…

Note to future Mari reading these (in case you’re still afraid of flying) – you can do it! You might (and probably will) cry during take-off, but if you’re going to/from Finland people around will probably ignore you, so it’s fine. And after the plane is in the air, it’s not that bad. Also being drunk/hungover helps. Wine is a friend. Also – you can’t buy drinks from the plane with a Visa Electron or cash, so be prepared for that. If you look enough like a pathetic weeping mess they might give you water though.

Okay, back to the week. Wappu was… fun. 😀 It was basically 5 days of partying, and I’m not going to write about that much about it, but here is the trip in pictures:

My best bae.Friday afterwork drinksSaturday we had a traditional Wappu house tour. I left my car to Denmark so I had to come up with alternative transport methods.

Wappu-Iida <3The colour-coordinated dream teamOn Sunday there was a music festival in Smökki.

The Retuperä Voluntary Fire Brigade Band at the Declaration of Wappu Rowdiness.

Athene’s Wappu boat to Helsinki!

Just a DJ under a bridge.The main deal about Wappu is that we can start wearing our student caps (Teekkarilakki in Finnish) again at midnight on 1st of May, and then in the next morning we gather to Ullanlinnanmäki for a picnic. This year I got up a lot earlier than in previous years. 😀The weather wasn’t the best… … but luckily Wappu is a state of mind.Farewells to the dog. Only a month and I’ll be back to see her!

I came back to Denmark on Wednesday, and hurried to a project presentation straight from the airport. It didn’t go that well, because I didn’t have time/energy to prepare, and had basically forgotten what I had done in the project. But I think I remembered enough to pass, and that’s all I wanted.

On Thursday morning I joined a friend to a riding tour with Icelandic Horses in Dragør! It was really cool, even though I was super tired from the trip, and we had to wake up really early. The weather was lovely, and we rode the horses into the sea. At first we just let them eat seaweed and splash around, but then we raced back to the shoreline and got soaked. 😀 The horses were happy though. Mine was called Blidfari. 🙂

The rest of the week was then mostly spent on sitting in my small room, fighting a cold that the Wappu picnic on Tuesday (and maybe also riding in the water) unfortunately brought on.

I’ve also been battling with a growing panic about all the work I need to get done before the Norway trip that starts tomorrow evening… I was supposed to be reading Project Management the whole weekend, but then I realised that I also need to get the app done by Monday.

On Friday I studied (and rested… the cold really made me slow) at home during the day, and then in the evening met the Norwegians and Minna for a dinner in a burger restaurant in Østerbro.

On Saturday I realised at some point that I didn’t get that much done at home, and took myself to a cafe in Lyngby.

Today I joined people from my buddy group to see Avengers: Infinity War. My god. I really loved it. I’m such a sucker for a superhero movie… I don’t want to give SPOILERS, but watching that after also finishing the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince audiobook today really brought on the feels. Can’t wait to see the second part of the film.